Transformation is a word that one meets often in the business world. It is a world that I hear hundreds or thousands of times in all the meetings I have with large corporations, small-to-medium corporations and startups. Business transformation, digital transformation, strategic transformation, etc…

The Cambridge dictionary defines the word transformation as “the complete change in the appearance or character of something or someone, especially so that such thing or person is improved”.

So, as a business strategist, it is normal for me to hear the word transformation that often. After all, the ultimate business strategy is to improve a business organisation. The end goal being of course profit maximisation. Either by increasing income or optimising costs. It is core to my mission to constantly transform organisations. Transforming startups from ideas to cohesive organisations, transforming SMBs from cohesive organisation into efficient machines and transforming large organisations from a multitude of efficient machines into an integrated ecosystem. …

Anyone who has owned or managed a business would agree that businesses are very much like high-performance games. And the company that has the most paying customers wins. So, in a game where the more paying customers you have, the higher your chances are to survive and win, how do you get the word out, drive demand for your products or services, and generate more sales in a cost-effective way?

Marketing has changed dramatically from the days of Don Draper and Roger Sterling where marketing was synonymous with untraceable expenditure on advertising and branding. Today, good marketing is an empirical science involving careful research of the target audience, strategic analysis of how to reach it, systematic design of the appropriate tactics and instruments, disciplined execution of the plans and exact measurement of the results. …

Product development is generally defined as the complete process of bringing a new product to market. In some organisations, it is also used to cover the complete product lifecycle beyond its launch, to its operation up until it is retired. This process is composed of iterative steps to go from idea generation to the final product launch :

● Identifying new product candidates

● Gathering the voice of customers

● Defining product requirements

● Determining business-case and feasibility

● Scoping and defining new products at high level

● Evangelising new products within the company

● Building product roadmaps, particularly technology…

In an increasingly competitive world, where menial work, no matter the level of skills it used to require, is being automated and delegated to robots, creativity is becoming the most valuable asset and competitive advantage an organization can have. However, looking at most organizations that failed their transformation into a more creative one, this seems easier said than done.

Research shows that creative thinking involves making new connections between different regions of the brain. This connection can be accomplished by cultivating divergent thinking skills and deliberately exposing oneself to new experiences and learning. The act of creativity is associated with many elusive factors such as conducive environments, ideal collaborators, personality traits, spirituality, and just pure luck. …

More often than not, we make assumptions. An assumption, by definition, is something that you assume to be true, even without proof. This is a very common human behaviour. These assumptions are made based on personal life experiences, and are designed to optimise the resources consumption from our brains for cognitive activities. Therefore, most of these assumptions are not consciously apparent in our decision making environment. However, this amazing biological resource optimisation can also be the source of a lot of paradoxes, misunderstandings and resistance to change in human behavior.

Designers, like any other humans, are not immune to making assumptions. Actually, making assumptions and presuppositions is part of the job description of designers, scientists and other professional problem-solvers. The key difference being that these professionals are supposed to scientifically validate each of their assumptions to reach a viable and validated solution. This makes testing a critical part of any design process. …

For every designer, with the right idea in hand, comes a time where you need to prototype.

Whether you design fashionable clothes, make sports cars or code innovative software, at some point you have to build a prototype. Prototyping is an important phase as it allows us to translate our ideas into the physical world and test them with real users. The main objective of a prototype is to obtain quick and inexpensive feedback from the users as early as possible in the design process.

However, in order for prototyping to succeed, there are some basic principles that apply:

• First principle: Love it, change it or leave…

Ideation is the most critical part of any design process. Ideation is at its root a creative process for generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, whether they are visual, concrete, or abstract ideas.

Once you have a clearly identified problem statement within a given context, comes the ideation process. Ideation is a full thought cycle that encompasses several stages, from innovation, to development, to actualization. The ideation process can be done individually or in groups. However, in design thinking and creative problem-solving, it is better to ideate in groups. …

Money in all its forms has been used as a medium to convey the value of things. It is today used to store and exchange a value that exceeds its own value.

Money as we know it has been around for more than 3 000 years but it did undergo several transformations. Coming a long way from the symbolic shells in ancient China to its current form of hard currency and electronic bits. …